"Well, that fucking sucked."

Chrys snorted as they piled into the motel room. Her back and shoulder ached where the witch, Maggie Stark, and tossed her into a wall like a ragdoll. Arguably, everything hurt, but her back and shoulder were crying out the loudest.

She watched with narrowed eyes as Dean pulled out a flask and took a swig. Sam, too, was watching, and Dena glared when he saw Sam's cocked eyebrow.

"Oh, give me a break."

Sam raised his hands. "Hey, I didn't say anything."

"I will," Chrys snapped. "Quit drinking on the damn job. You're as bad as Bobby, Christ."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Aw, come on, C. It's been a long day."

A man who Chrys didn't recognize stepped out of the bathroom, smiling evenly at all of them. "And it's not over yet."

Chrys immediately pulled the gun from her waistband and pointed it at the stranger. Dean did the same, but Sam was just staring.

"Hi, Sam, Dean, Chrysanthemum."

"Ugh," Chrys complained.

Sam ignored her. "Do we know you?"

The man chuckled. "Well, I definitely know you. You're the dead guys." He shrugged. "Well, you will be in a minute."

Chrys shot the man at the same time Dean did. Black liquid ran from the wounds, and after only a few moments the bullets popped out, lading on the ground with dull thuds.

The man looked up and grinned. "Sorry. You're a bit outmatched."

He launched forward to punch Dean in the face, sending the eldest Winchester sprawling to the floor. The stranger turned to Chrys, and she was able to dodge him a couple of times before he hit her hard in the chest, sending her into the wall again. Her back exploded in agony, leaving her breathless. The leviathan took Sam by the throat and lifted him off of the ground, pressed to the wall. Sam kicked and scrabbled at the hand holding him.

Before she could even start to recover, Chrys saw Don Stark, the other witch they'd encountered that day, standing in the doorway they'd never managed to get closed. He raised a hand, one eyebrow cocked, and she watched in amazement as the leviathan started to twitch and jerk. He fell to the ground and stayed still.

She stood shakily, as did the Winchesters. Dean looked over at the witch. "Don."

"Thank you," Chrys said softly. "We owe you."

Don was still staring down at the leviathan. "Good god. What is that thing?"

Despite the fact that they did know, Chrys answered cheerfully, "Wish we had a good answer for you." Just saved their asses or no, they weren't in the business of sharing information with witches.

"Finding out is on our to-do list," Dean said evenly.

Don walked into the room and started to dig under one of the mattresses. "Find a bottomless pit and drop that thing in. Spell only lasts for a few days."

"Uh," Sam started. "What are you even doing here?"

"Saving your lives." The witch held up a coin that he'd pulled from beneath the bed. "Twice."

Chrys scowled. "Seriously, Maggie?" Don ignored her to go to the other mattress and dig around under that.

"She was gonna kill us?" Dean asked incredulously. "We just saved your damn marriage!"

Don shrugged as he produced the other coin. "Yeah, but, to be fair, you also tried to kill her. You know how she is when she gets a bug up her ass." He smiled. "Gotta love her, right?" At their blank stares, "Right." He pointed to the prone man. "Bottomless pit. Ciao!" He left, closing the door gently behind him.

There were a few beats of silence before Chrys spoke. "You know what? I call the first shower."


Several hours and three showers later, they were loading up the Impala with the leviathan and the rest of their gear. Dean was on the phone with Bobby, and Chrys listened distractedly as she organized the stuff in the trunk so she could fit the leviathan in there, too.

"Yeah," Dean was confirming. "He's ready for transport. I just hope you got someplace you can put him. Yeah, all right. We'll see you soon."

He hung up the phone and handed Chrys his bag. "We should hit the road. Everyone ready?"

She put the bag in next to the leviathan and slammed the trunk shut. "As we'll ever be." She made her way to the backseat, ready to sleep like the dead on the way back to South Dakota.

Unfortunately, Sam was standing with the front passenger door open, making his "Let's Talk About our Feelings" face at Dean. "Hey," he started, "were you, um, were you listening to the Starks tonight?"

I'm never going to have any peace, Chrys thought mournfully. It's always going to be these drama queens and their feelings talks over the roof of the Impala. What did I do to deserve this?

Dean scoffed. "Uh, a little, when I wasn't getting slammed into a wall or stung by bees."

"You notice how they, uh, how they... Opened up, got everything off their chest?"

Real subtle, Sammy.

"Yeah. Kudos on selling them that shit."

Sam frowned. "It wasn't shit, Dean. It worked."

Dean finally caught on and sighed heavily. "Sam, I am so very, very, very, very… Very, very tired-"

"Dean, like it or not, the stuff you don't talk about doesn't just go away. It builds up, like whatever's eating at you right now."

"There's always something eating at me," Dean dismissed. "That's who I am. Something happens, I feel responsible, all right? The Lindbergh baby? That's on me. Unemployment? My bad."

"That's not what I'm talking about."

"Well, then, what the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about whatever you're not telling me!" Sam took a deep breath. "Look, Dean, it's fine. You can unload. That's kind of what I'm here for."

There were a few moments of silence before Chrys rolled her eyes. I have to do everything around here. "Are you talking about Amy?"

They both stiffened and turn to stare at her. "What about Amy?" Sam asked, his voice low and dangerous. He turned back to Dean. "Did you-"

"No," Chrys snapped, exasperated and tired. "He just tried, calm down."

"What?"

Dean sighed. "Dammit, C."

"Oh, shut up, like you have a leg to stand on."

"She was a monster!"

"She was a mother!" Chrys pointed a finger at the eldest Winchester. "You don't get to make those kinds of calls by yourself."

He pointed at Sam. "Neither does he!"

"That's why he didn't!"

"Then why did you get to make it?!"

"I didn't. Sam and I made it together. Majority rules."

"What do you mean, 'I don't get to make those kinds of calls?'" Sam asked, brow furrowed.

Chrys rolled her eyes. "Sam. Baby. Level with me." She looked up at him, sinking into his hazel eyes a little. "You're hallucinating actual Lucifer, Sam. I know that you're getting a handle on them, I do, and I have faith in you, but do you see how maybe someone on the outside might be skeptical?"

The thing was, Chrys did have faith in Sam. She knew that letting the Ponds flee was the best choice, and she didn't regret it for a second, but she also thought she was right about Sam. She would do her best to back his play no matter what he did, but it would take time for anyone but her to have faith in him. She was all right with waiting.

She just wasn't sure if he would be.

He looked down at her with an unreadable expression. She kept his gaze, standing her ground, projecting calm confidence. He finally sighed. "Okay."

Dean gaped. "Okay? Just like that, you're not pissy? Just… 'Okay?'"

Sam shrugged. "Yeah. I mean, I get it. I'm kind of a wild card right now. It's going to take some time for me to be sure that I'm making the right call, anyway, and that I'm not responding to the hallucinations. It'll be good to have Chrys checking my work, and it'll let you rest easy knowing that someone's watching my back."

While Dean's mouth was opening and closing like a fish, Chrys was suddenly drowning in love. Her Sam, her sweet, rational soulmate, who took the out she gave him and ran with it. Who was able to acknowledge, finally, that maybe some things should be put in her hands to handle.

Apparently, emotional maturity was a turn-on.

Oh, he's definitely getting laid tonight.

Dean threw his hands in the air in exasperation. "Fine," he growled. "Let's get back to Sioux Falls."


The next morning, Chrys was up before the sun. Despite the… Athletic activities of the night before, she was still too wired to sleep in, not with a leviathan captive and who knew how many more out there wreaking havoc.

She was wearing one of Sam's t-shirts and a pair of her own gym shorts. She made coffee silently, and when it was done, she grabbed her cigarettes and a cup and stepped out into the crisp morning air to watch the sun rise.

It should have been peaceful, but her thoughts were a jumbled wreck, so she found little respite in her surroundings. It wasn't until Dean came out, his own mug in hand, to sit next to her that she was able to turn her brain off for a moment.

He was wrinkling his nose and glaring at her. "All night, C? All night?"

She grinned, unrepentant. "Well… Yeah. Progress should be rewarded."

"All night?"

She chuckled. "I mean, if you're jealous, I'm sure I can talk Sam into-"

He threw his hand up in disgust. "Gross. God, fuck, woman. Gross." He snapped his fingers. "Give me a cigarette."

"Pushy." But she handed the pack and her lighter over.

They smoked in silence for a while until he spoke. "Gonna be rough, figuring out these leviathans."

She shrugged. "We can do it."

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Just like that, huh?"

"Just like that."


**Feedback gives me the warm fuzzies and keeps me going.
**Short chapter, sorry. I wanted to resolve this nonsense, and if we did that AND the next important episode, it would have been like 9K words long. And my birthday was this week, so I was slacking. ^^'